Is this an SEO Problem? If so, how to fix it...

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by MarketLady, Jul 31, 2009.

  1. #1
    Hi,

    I have a site which gets about 2500 visits each month. When I looked at my analytics report I noticed the following thing:

    I have views for the same page in 2 formats:

    http://mysite.com/abc.html
    and http://mysite.com/abc

    Both pages open on the same content. I'm afraid that this is seen as duplicate content by the Search Engines. Apparently some links pointing to my site (some of which I can't control) use one form and some use another.

    How can I redirect the http://mysite.com/abc address to the one with the html ending?

    Is this even a problem at all?

    Thanks. I appreciate all your help in advance.

    Marketlady
     
    MarketLady, Jul 31, 2009 IP
  2. vithca

    vithca Guest

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    #2
    I wouldn't worry about it.

    You can do a 301 redirect if it bothers you, but I've not seen any SEO problems from this scenario.
     
    vithca, Jul 31, 2009 IP
  3. maineexista

    maineexista Peon

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    #3
    simply download you .htaccess from your site, open with any .txt reader, put this red section of code into it

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^restaurantbeirut.ro
    RewriteRule (.*) http://www.restaurantbeirut.ro/$1 [R=301,L]


    replace the sitename, save it and upload it back where it was by overwriting it the old one

    have a wonderful day out there !

    :p
     
    maineexista, Jul 31, 2009 IP
  4. coolat0

    coolat0 Peon

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    #4
    might split your backlinks would be the only concern.

    it is how your files are sitting on your server most likely.
     
    coolat0, Jul 31, 2009 IP
  5. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #5
    If you are rendering the exact same page under two different URLs then you have canonicalization issues... which create duplicate content issues and split page rank/link juice issues.

    So if 10 sites link to http://mysite.com/abc.html and 10 other sites link to http://mysite.com/abc, the engines will see this as 2 different URLs each with 10 inbound links... What you would likely want to happen is to have Google see this as 1 URL with 20 inbound links.

    Also Google will select one of these URLs' content as the original and flag the other URL's content as a duplicate. The URL whose content is flagged as duplicate will score lower on those ranking factors based on the content of the page making it a little harder for the duplicate page to rank well... You have no way to know which URL Google selected as the original. What if the select the version with the fewest inbound links? You've just handicapped the ability of your URL(s) to rank well.

    You need to 301 redirect one to the other... This will transfer credit for inbound links (and link text) to the abc URL to the abc.html URL, giving abc.html credit for all inbound links to BOTH URLs. You can achieve this using Mod_Rewrite by adding the following lines to your .htaccess in your root folder:

    Beware the same situation can occur if you all referencing URLs on your site w/ both non-www and www versions of the URL. So you should pick either the non-www or www version as your preferred or canonical URL, and 301 redirect the non-canonical URL to the canonical URL.
     
    Canonical, Jul 31, 2009 IP
  6. MarketLady

    MarketLady Peon

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    #6
    Hi Canonical and the rest of you. I thank you for your help. I fixed the whole non-www or www issue and it works fine.

    However, I can still access the same page whether if it's in the form of mysite.com/abs and mysite.com/abc.html

    How can I fix just that part?
     
    MarketLady, Aug 7, 2009 IP
  7. graciespencers

    graciespencers Peon

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    #7
    dear,
    there's nothing worry about it but your doubt of duplicate content is opt. Do one thing do a 301 redirect to wherever you want to on your site.
     
    graciespencers, Aug 7, 2009 IP